Red Sox Move One Win Away From Series

Boston Prods Detroit's Weak Spots Again to Capture Game 5 of the ALCS

By

Daniel Barbarisi

Updated Oct. 18, 2013 3:21 a.m. ET

At times in this American League Championship Series, the strengths of the Detroit Tigers have made them look like a dominant team.

But after a 4-3 win in Thursday night's ALCS Game 5, it's the Boston Red Sox who are one win away from reaching the World Series—because the Red Sox have been able to poke and prod and damage the Tigers in their weak spots.

ENLARGE

Red Sox closer Koji Uehara recorded a five-out save to preserve Boston's 4-3 win over the Detroit Tigers in Game Five of the ALCS.
Getty Images

In the moments leading up to playoff games, players talk about winning with their strengths as the key to the postseason—and indeed, the Tigers' dominant starting pitching has kept them in this series. But just as often it's the team that can find the other team's pressure points, and drive hard at them, that comes out on top.

The Tigers are built around that fearsome starting rotation and its strikeout capabilities, and a powerful middle of the order in Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder and Victor Martinez. But they have serious holes, as well: They are a terrible defensive team. They can't run. And they have a shaky bullpen. And the Red Sox have pressed hard on each of those soft areas in building their 3-2 series lead.

"You capitalize on their mistakes and you try to do whatever you can on your end," said Boston right fielder Shane Victorino. "If you capitalize, you minimize mistakes on your end, you capitalize on their mistakes—however you need to do to get it done."

Thursday, the Tigers made baserunning blunders and defensive miscues, and the Red Sox pounced, putting on additional pressure on the basepaths to try to force Detroit's defenders into further errors. In the first inning, when rounding third on a ball to shallow left field, Cabrera blew through the third-base coach's stop sign despite the fact that his normally glacial speed was reduced even further by accumulated lower-body injuries. It didn't go well.

"[The coach] stopped me, and I was not able to stop in the right time," Cabrera said. "It was my fault." Then in the second inning, he botched an easy ground ball that led to the second Boston run.

After an injury to catcher Alex Avila forced the Tigers to bring in backup Brayan Pena, the Tigers had only two athletic players on the field—shortstop Jose Iglesias and centerfielder Austin Jackson—and it showed as Iglesias ran all over the field trying to make up for the defensive deficiencies of Cabrera and newly converted left fielder Jhonny Peralta.

"He's covering ground from left to right, 100 yards," outfielder Torii Hunter said of Iglesias. "Miggy's hurt, his range is kinda scarce. And with Iglesias out there… he got some miles on him tonight, trust me."

And that fearsome threesome in the middle of the order? Boston has handled them well, using shifts to neutralize Fielder, and attacking Cabrera where he is weak—with outside fastballs to take advantage of his injuries.

Meanwhile, Detroit wasn't able to exploit Boston's weak points.

Boston's hitters are strikeout prone, and the Tigers have taken advantage of that most of the series—racking up an average of more than 11 strikeouts per game over the first four games. But Thursday, Boston hitters didn't chase as many of starter Anibal Sanchez' pitches, finishing with the improved total of eight punchouts on the night, while Boston's Mike Napoli waited out Sanchez for a monster home run that opened the team's three-run second inning.

And their other potential weak spot, the middle relief corps, hasn't proven a problem.

Boston's closer, Koji Uehara, is dominant. But the bridge to reach him can be shaky. The Tigers, however, haven't gotten Boston's starters out early enough to get into Boston's dubious middle relief, and when they have, Boston's setup men, Junichi Tazawa and Craig Breslow, have stepped up and delivered excellent outings. Until Tazawa allowed a seventh-inning run Thursday, the Boston bullpen had put up 18 straight scoreless innings. And after that run, Tazawa and then Breslow prevented further damage, keeping Boston a run ahead. Uehara followed with one out in the eighth to ice the win.

"Those three guys have pitched outstanding for us in the postseason," manager John Farrell said. "From Taz turning it over to Bres, and then a five-out save by Koji, he continues to be so efficient. In games here against the Tigers it's been with his back against the wall, and he's been outstanding."

So the Tigers find themselves facing elimination in Saturday night's Game 6, in Boston. As they have done all series, they will rally behind their strengths—in this case, the presumptive Cy Young winner, Saturday starting pitcher Max Scherzer. And they will try to leverage their desperate position into motivation, Hunter explained—as only he can.

"If you had a tiger, and he was backed in a corner, he couldn't go left, he couldn't go right, he couldn't go behind him, what's he going to do?" Hunter asked. "Fight through. And that's what we're going to try to do. That's what Tigers do. Our backs are against the wall. We can't go left, we can't go right, we're going to fight through."

This is great baseball. While I agree with the premise of the writer (teams win championships, and not stars), this series has you wondering about the outcome in all games but one. Pitching is breathtakingly good. The few hits that come are often monster hits. The real strategy has been more about baserunning and less about other details of the game.

When an impenetrable force meets an immovable object, something has to give.

In fairness to Cabrera, the third base coach originally gave the go-ahead sign, then held him up a second later. Also, the ground ball he didn't come up with appeared to take a bad hop. So he is not entirely to blame.

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